Pop
25 Best K-Pop Songs of 2021: Critics’ Picks
K-pop expanded its perimeters and scope this year while simultaneously infusing itself into today’s trends and sounds in creative ways. While many acts raised their international profiles with releases that found bigger audiences than ever, the songs that truly soared pushed the limits to represent more than just the stars singing them. While it’d be impossible to capture the brilliance of the K-pop industry in one year-end list, these songs give a snapshot of some of the best that the scene had to offer in a year that was challenging for many but offered inspiration in other ways—including from these 25 songs.
Song of the Week: Best Coast and The Linda Lindas Collaborate on the Vibrant “Leading”
We’re taking a break from our Annual Report to highlight the Song of the Week. In this feature, we talk about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, Best Coast is back with a little help from rising stars The Linda Lindas. Pop culture right now seems dominated by a certain amount of sentimentality. Rebooting and revamping have become the norm, and people are starting to push back on the oversaturation. Best Coast probably weren’t intending to jump into that exact discourse with their latest, “Leading,” but the opening line is a relatable statement nonetheless: “Nostalgia’s overrated, or maybe it’s just complicate...
Kim Kardashian Is Apparently a Swiftie Now
Look what you made her do. On Thursday, Kim Kardashian opened up in a new interview about her feelings toward Taylor Swift’s music, and it appears she’s a Swiftie just like the rest of us. “I mean, I really like a lot of her songs,” she said on the podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss. “They’re all super cute and catchy. I’d have to look in my phone to get a name.” Of course, this is a major change of tune for the reality star, considering her long and tangled history with Swift amid the star’s well-documented feud with Kanye West… err, Ye. Advertisement Related Video Though Kim wasn’t yet married to the rapper when he infamously crashed the “All Too Well” singer’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV VMAs, she got involved in the pair’s drama over Ye’s single “Famous” several years later by leak...
Posthumous Aaliyah Collab with The Weeknd “Poison” Released: Stream
Aaliyah’s original catalog hit streaming services for the first time earlier this year, and now, a posthumous album is on the way via Blackground Records 2.0 and EMPIRE. The late artist’s estate has just shared the first look at the record with the song “Poison,” a collaboration with The Weeknd. Most of Aaliyah’s music had been out of print for a decade because Barry Hankerson, Blackground Records founder and Aaliyah’s uncle, refused to license her catalog to streaming services. Only her 1994 debut, the R. Kelly-produced Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number, had been on streaming services because Hankerson didn’t control its masters. In August, however, Hankerson revealed in an interview with Billboard that he had struck a deal with EMPIRE to release the rest of her catalog, as well as...
FKA twigs and The Weeknd Drop Collaborative Single “Tears in the Club”: Stream
FKA twigs and The Weeknd have teamed up for a new song called “Tears in the Club.” Produced by Arca, Cirkut, and El Guincho, the song comes with a music video directed by Amber Grace Johnson, which you can watch below. “Tears in the club ’cause your love has got me fucked up,” FKA twigs sings over ringing piano and heavy bass. The Weeknd’s verse comes later, when he begs the singer to “let it out like therapy.” In the music video, he does just that, as tears wet his face while he watches twigs dance. At one point, he’s shrunk down to the size of her hand and stands on her finger while she sings. It’s a fun visual all around. Last year, FKA twigs said she made an entire album during quarantine with El Guincho, but it has yet to be released. She last dropped the Central Cee collaboration “Me...
Watch Ariana Grande ‘Audition’ for Blake Shelton’s ‘Come Back as a Country Boy’ Music Video
Ariana Grande, wannabe country girl? That’s the premise behind the amusing skit posted by the superstar on Tuesday showing her “audition” for Blake Shelton‘s “Come Back as a Country Boy” music video. In the comical clip, the “Santa Tell Me” singer dons a cowboy hat, flannel shirt and high-heeled boots while talking to off-camera casting agents. “Blake doesn’t think I’m ‘country enough,’ but I told him he’s so wrong so hopefully this’ll really show him what he needs to see,” she deadpans with her fingers crossed. The pint-size superstar then proceeds to fail miserably at various country-fied activities like catching a beer can, starting up a chainsaw (“Are you sure it’s charged? I think this one is defective…”) and kicking over a tree. “Still waiting to hear but i feel like no news is good ...
Queen of Hearts Talks ‘Masked Singer’ Victory, Instant Covers EP: ‘Music Has Always Been My Own Healing’
[Spoiler alert: This story contains the identity of the winner of Wednesday night’s (Dec. 15) season six finale of The Masked Singer.] The sixth season of The Masked Singer was a wild ride, with the usual complement of legendary singers (Toni Braxton, Ruth Pointer, Natasha Bedingfield, Todrick Hall, Faith Evans) mixed in with TV personalities and comedians (Bobby Berk, Honey Boo Boo/Mama June, Rob Schneider, Larry the Cable Guy, Willie Robertson) and the left-field outliers, including punk icon Johnny Rotten, composer David Foster and his wife Katharine McPhee, rapper Tyga and NBA legend Dwight Howard. But when it came down to it, it was clear the shiniest gem in the bunch — the glittery Queen of Hearts — was destined to take the season 6 crown over the formidable Bull. The Queen lef...
Darren Criss Calls ‘A Very Darren Crissmas’ Album ‘Cheeky’ With ‘Pathos’: ‘It Is a Very Me Thing’
“I didn’t want it to be, or seem in the slightest, like a surface-level, sort of commercial cash grab,” Darren Criss says of his first holiday album, the aptly titled A Very Darren Crissmas. “That was like, the anti-what I wanted to do.” So what makes a Darren Criss Christmas album especially Crissmas-y? Explore See latest videos, charts and news “It had to be very, very, very me,” the entertainer tells the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast (listen to his full 40-minute interview, below). “Which requires a few things. It has to have left-of-center choices musically, things that people don’t know at all. It’s gonna be seemingly cheeky but hopefully (have) a lot pathos. Just a lot of stuff that I subscribe to. “And trying to whittle that down to make it the most sort of honed version of what I just...
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2021: No. 3 — Adele
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2021 for the rest of this week. At No. 3, we remember the year in Adele — a long-dormant pop titan who returned late in the year and proved herself still one of the industry’s mightiest forces. Explore Explore Adele See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news If you had Adele on your mind back in January, maybe you were celebrating the 10-year anniversary of her blockbuster 21 album (alongside the singer) – or maybe you were still pondering why she decided to host Saturday Night Live in fall 2020 without anything to promote. After all, it had been more than five years since the world had heard a musical peep from the...
Here’s What Mariah Carey Had to Say About a Verzuz Battle With Beyonce
The fans want to know: Who would Mariah Carey be willing to do a Verzuz battle against? Though the list of potential opponents that are able to hold a candle to her 19 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits, six Billboard 200 No. 1 albums and five Grammy Awards is short, there’s one singer who Carey is against entertaining speculations of possible Verzuz battle. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In an interview with E! published Wednesday (Dec. 15), Carey was asked if she would ever challenge Beyoncé to a Verzuz battle. “I love Beyoncé and I admire her so much as a performer, for what she’s done for the world and everything else, so I ain’t answering that question,” she said. “I’ll be disrespecting myself and I’m not going to do that, because it’...
Ed Sheeran & Elton John Bring ‘Christmas’ Cheer to Hot 100, Holiday & Adult Contemporary Charts
Ed Sheeran and Elton John‘s “Merry Christmas” debuts on multiple Billboard charts dated Dec. 18. The carol, which the British stars co-wrote, drew 4.9 million all-format radio audience impressions and 4.6 million U.S. streams and sold 11,800 in the week ending Dec. 9, according to MRC Data, following its Dec. 3 release. The single launches at No. 2 on Holiday Digital Song Sales, No. 4 on Digital Song Sales, No. 10 on Billboard Global Excl. U.S., No. 20 on the Billboard Global 200 and No. 72 on the Billboard Hot 100. John earns his 70th career Hot 100 hit, becoming the 23rd artist to reach the mark since the list originated in August 1958. It’s his third of 2021, after he hadn’t appeared on the chart since 2000 until this August. The song follows this year’s “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix),” with ...
Fred Armisen, Mark Hamill, Ringo Starr, Jon Hamm & More Cameo in First-Ever Video For George Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’
As part of the ongoing 50th anniversary celebration of late Beatle George Harrison‘s landmark triple-disc 1970 solo album All Things Must Pass, director Lance Bangs gathered a group of more than 40 actors, musicians and comedians to film the first-ever video for one of the collection’s most beloved songs, “My Sweet Lord.” Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The cameo-stuffed seven-minute clip — executive produced by Harrison’s son, musician Dhani Harrison — finds metaphysical special agents Fred Armisen and Vanessa Bayer searching high and low for… something. Tasked by Star Wars icon Mark Hamill with finding “something out there,” the pair of psychic detectives set off on a search across Los Angeles that has them bumping into dozens of familiar fac...
